WordPress and Wistia

WordPress is an awesome platform for creating powerful websites. Here's a quick guide to making Wistia and WordPress go together like PB&J.

Getting Started

Like Wistia's favorite treat (donuts 🍩), WordPress comes in many flavors.
Because of this, how you embed your video varies based on what type of WordPress
environment you're using. Is it WordPress.com or WordPress.org? Are you using
special plugins? What about your theme?

There are so many ways to customize WordPress, that one size does not fit all.
It can be a pretty variable experience, but this page is here to help.

Embedding on WordPress.com

Let's start with
WordPress.com. Adding video
to your posts is super easy, since Wistia is a default oEmbed provider for
WordPress. So let's dive into grabbing that oEmbed URL and sharing your
fantastic video.

Using an oEmbed URL

An oEmbed URL is a simple link that tells WordPress how to embed content from
third-party sources (like that cool video hosting platform for businesses you're
so fond of).

To create an oEmbed URL for a video in your Wistia account, select "Use oEmbed
URL" under Options on the Embed & Share
screen. Take a look-see:

Embedding on WordPress.org

If you're embedding on your WordPress.org site, you'll want to use the
Standard (or popover) Wistia embed.
Just paste your Standard embed code into your post, and you're good to go!

Fallback Options

Since WordPress is highly customizable, these options don't always work in every
situation. We recommend using the
Standard,
Fallback, or regular
popover embed code types first,
but if those don't work, you'll need to call for backup. That's where the Wistia
WordPress plugin comes in handy.

The Anti-Mangler

The Wistia WordPress plugin also includes the Anti-Mangler, which (as the name
implies) protects Wistia embed codes on your website from getting mangled by
WordPress. It's disabled by default, and should only be enabled if you really
don't want to use the oEmbed approach, which is the
approach we strongly recommend. The Anti-Mangler is a decent fallback option
though, so if you'd like to enable it, head to Settings in your WordPress admin
panel, and choose Wistia WordPress. Or on the Plugins page, there's a Settings
link right under the plugin name.

Note

The Anti-Mangler used to be enabled by default, but is optional (and no longer recommended) as of version 0.8 of the Wistia WordPress plugin.

Adding Wistia to the oEmbed provider whitelist in your WordPress

Unfortunately, Wistia is not included in the whitelist for oEmbed providers in all WordPress installations. Fortunately, adding Wistia as a trusted provider isn't too difficult thanks to WordPress being prepared for this sort of situation.

Once you've added that to the functions.php file in your WordPress install, as their documentation indicates, you should be all set to use Wistia media URLs to embed Wistia videos in your WordPress.

Tips for Using WordPress

oEmbed URL not converting into an embedded video?

When inserting an oEmbed URL, make sure you are in HTML editing mode, and leave
a line open above and below the URL. If you switch from HTML to Visual mode it
can add formatting tags around your oEmbed URL, which may cause it to break. Be
careful of that!

Video appearing smaller than it should be?

If you have larger resolution videos and they are appearing smaller or squished,
access the WordPress admin control panel (Settings -> Media -> Maximum Video
Embed Size) and set the max to the largest size of your video ('no limit'
setting doesn't work, it must be actual size). Some WordPress themes will also
set a maximum width for content embedded with oEmbed. If you want to change that,
check out How to Set oEmbed Max Width in WordPress 3.5 with $content_width.

Video not centered?

If you want to center your video inside a div or column on your website,
and you are using an oEmbed URL to embed your video, please use a second div with the
style display: inline-block;, as seen here:

To expedite your support, let us know what theme you're using (if any), any other
plugins you've installed, and where you're pasting the embed code (as a post,
into a module in your theme?). This will help us get to the bottom of the issue
faster for you!

Simply video SEO.

Use video to attract viewers to your site, not ours; no fancy code work
needed. Learn all about the simplicity of Wistia's pain-free
video SEO.

Sharing is caring!

There are lots of ways to share videos with Wistia, both privately and
publicly. Check out the
sharing videos page
for all of the details.